A native of Mississippi, R. Flowers Rivera is an award-winning poet, and the author of two books. She completed a Ph.D. in English, specializing in African American literature and creative writing, at Binghamton University. Xavier Review Press published her debut poetry collection, Troubling Accents (July 2013), which received a nomination from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and was selected by the Texas Association of Authors as its 2014 Poetry Book of the Year.
Rivera’s second collection, Heathen (February 2015) was published by Lotus Press, Inc., and distributed by Wayne State University. It has been selected by poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller as the winner of the 2015 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. This award was established by Lotus Press to recognize an outstanding book-length manuscript by an African-American poet.